


On the Rise

by LilydaleXF



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Halloween, MSR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:10:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF
Summary: Mulder and Scully get their sweet tooth on in the X-Files office at Halloween.  In other words, this story is achingly sweet. Plus there's a slide show.





	On the Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anjou for the encouragement and read-through!

Scully sits down and faces the projector screen while trying to not roll her eyes before Mulder even starts talking. Mulder was insistent that she come to the X-Files office as soon as she could after her afternoon autopsy consult because he'd stumbled hot down an X-Files trail.

That's the phrase he said to her on the phone: "stumbled hot down an X-Files trail." She thought, not for the first time, that he might not be quite right in the head. He's a peculiar shambolic disaster that's perfect for Halloween. She can't help but smile warmly at his back as he fusses loudly with his slides.

"Scully, I've got some science for you," Mulder says as he turns around. No evidence of that yet exists – the screen is white as a ghost – but Mulder is still starting out strong. At least it's stronger than usual for one of his slide shows. That fact raises her suspicions immediately even as the curiosity of Doctor Dana Katherine Scully, science aficionado, is indeed piqued as Mulder non-subtly intended.

"Are you going to prove to me scientifically the existence of The Great Pumpkin?"

"Sadly no, Scully, though that would be apt today for Halloween. Instead we've got hauntings."

"Hauntings, greaaaaaat," she murmurs.

He completely ignores her muttering and flips to a slide of a huge Victorian house that is entirely grey. She'd think it was a black and white photo but there's an unbelievably ugly mustard yellow car parked in front of the house. "529 Birch Street. Illinois," he announces. "Florence Malone lived in this house until one day, she didn't."

Mulder pauses and stares, which Scully knows from experience is for dramatic effect. She is going to be sitting here until Thanksgiving if this is the selected pace of the slide show, and she's hungry and already thinking about dinner.

Doing autopsies makes her hungry, which after enough autopsies morphed into even autopsy consults and reviewing autopsy reports making her hungry. She's come to accept it even as she recognizes its inherent gruesome wrongness. Mulder too knows she has this predilection. (He entirely delights in its inherent gruesome wrongness. "You sure you don't want to request a scalpel for cutting up your steak tonight, Scully?" is something he has asked her on more than one occasion. Only the first time was when she'd actually ordered a steak, but every time has been accompanied by a dumb adorable grin plastered on his dumb adorable face.)

He knows this autopsy fact about her, and he knows that the afternoon is creeping to an end, but he's moving slowly now anyway. As she ponders how that may drive her to murder him in this basement and create a new ghost for his haunted slide show, he continues his narration.

"Ms. Malone stopped living in the house in the traditional sense after a fateful encounter with a door-to-door salesman who bought himself a stay at Alcatraz after visiting this house, but she's stayed there until this day. Neighbors have reported hearing her screams when the front door opens, and many of those at the door have seen her in the hallway in a torn, ethereal robe."

"Uh-huh," Scully drones.

In reply Mulder clicks the projector to pop up another old home. "Here's 77 Livingstone Road. New Orleans. The late Jonas Hawthorne clangs on those second story balcony rails during thunderstorms."

"People are hearing the storm's winds, Mulder. Not a ghost banging."

"Au contraire. The wind does not have fingers or wear rings on said fingers that distinctively click on the metal rails."

"Oh for crying out loud."

"Funny you mention crying!" He clicks the machine again. "8282 Circle Road. Pasadena, California. The windows weep – tears actually run down them – courtesy of Jane Wilkins, whose face was streaked with dried tears when her caretaker found her one Autumn morning collapsed on the ground next to a desiccated copse of her prize flowers, which all apparently predeceased her."

"The windows?"

"They scare away every last trick or treater."

She narrows her eyes. This slide show seems more pointless than his usual slide shows, which is saying something. So she asks, "This isn't going to be like your Christmas Eve stunt, is it? This isn't another trick on me where we end up in an old, dark, allegedly haunted house?"

"That wasn't a trick, Scully. And it wasn't alleged. It was--"

"Alleged, Mulder. But honestly, why are you showing me all these houses? What’s the kicker?"

He smiles as if he knew she'd ask this, which she knows with an odd sense of comfort that he probably did.

"The kicker is when reportings related to all of these hauntings happen. They peak every year in October and in particular at Halloween." He clicks quickly and repeatedly until landing on a slide not featuring a house.

"Look at that bell curve, Scully."

She does look, even tilts her head as is she's studying the ridiculously simple graph. It's a surprise, and she's briefly blinded in enchantment by math and Mulder before saying, "You promised science. This is more math than science. I'm not one to complain about statistics, but...."

"I understand your skepticism, Scully, and appreciate my misjudgment in language. I also appreciate that this normal distribution may not fully capture the truly outstanding nature of the hauntings, of what all the ghosts are trying to tell us."

"They're not trying to tell us anything because they don't exist."

He smirks briefly before saying, "I think it would be helpful to see the statistics in a different way, one more attuned to the nature of hauntings." He clicks to the next slide.

"See Scully, it's a paranormal distribution! A haunting statistic!"

The joke is absurdly stupid and is clearly the whole point of this holiday slide show production. Scully's eyes practically roll out of her head they roll so hard, but she laughs. One unmistakable guffaw bursts out of her mouth as the corners of her lips upturn and her eyes crinkle closed in delighted shock before she raises her brows and looks askance at Mulder.

His whole face is glowing with pride. It's obvious he knows that her glare is entirely benevolent, but he nevertheless raises both his hands with palms facing her in mock surrender. "I bear apologies," he says as he reaches behind him to the cart holding the slide projector. From some unseen shelf he retrieves a crisp white bag. He pulls out two large red candy apples on sticks, one in each hand.

He nearly whispers, "Apples don't keep the doctor away, do they?"

She feels her face blushing as she shakes her head no. He extends one hand to her, and her fingers rest on his for one ambiguously accidental moment before taking the candy apple from him.

They're quiet and still, but for her moving to take a bite of her apple. As soon as she does she's reminded of hunger, of autopsies, of Mulder's insistence on her presence as soon as her work upstairs was done. He put a lot into this.

They both messily crunch candy and apples for a short while before she asks, "Halloween hauntings, Mulder? Really?"

"The graphs clearly show that today is the peak, Scully."

"No," she says, twirling her stick in a loop arcing back and forth between them. "Today is still near the beginning. The peak is yet to come."

He smiles a red-lipped smile. So does she. They're on the rise.

**Author's Note:**

> All the people and places in the slide show are 100% made up, so if they remind you of anything real, it's a complete coincidence.
> 
> This story was inspired by those slide show pictures, which you can find [here](http://lilydalexf.tumblr.com/post/166984056816/asapscience-less-variance-more-scariance) (original link [here](https://asapscience.tumblr.com/post/166377502887/less-variance-more-scariance-redditfunny)).


End file.
